Product Description

After following the advice from a manual called "How to Meet and Marry Mr Right", Jane learns that in love there is neither pattern nor promise. This is a funny collection of connected stories and a portrait of Jane, a woman manoeuvring her way through love, sex and relationships.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #267760 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Every once in a while a novel sinks into your consciousness that bit deeper than the others. Weeks and years later, apart from recounting the plot, you're left with a feeling, a sense of its soul. It may yet be too early to tell if the The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing will be memorable, but it's soon enough to tell that it defines an epoch. Melissa Bank has written a definitive account of the journey into adulthood, a female perspective on mating and dating. Any woman born this half of the 20th century, who's enjoyed (endured?) more than one relationship with the other side will warm to this funny, frank and sensitive novel. Jane Rosenal's entrée to the world of significant relationships begins with her older brother's older woman. The bewildered teenager's naive understanding and disbelief as the relationship disintegrates before her eyes should have served as a mighty warning on the perils of the mating game. But, hey, what's a little knowledge without bitter experience? As Jane grows into, and out of, a career in publishing, so she melts into, and out of, a series of pointless affairs. Throw in a few life- shattering personal experiences along the way, a near- disastrous encounter with a self-help manual, How to Meet and Marry Mr Right, and finally, Jane learns the secret that has eluded her for so long. Elegantly written and searingly honest, Melissa Bank's debut novel is one to recommend to all your girlfriends--single or not. -- Carey Green

Review
This chronicle of a New Yorker's relationships has a wit and perceptiveness that singles it out from the crowd (The Guardian )

One of the funniest, most assured books of the year (Esther Freud )

A sexy, funny, pour-your-heart-out, champagnetingle of a read (Cosmopolitan )

About the Author
Melissa Bank has had several stories published in US magazines. The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing is her first book. She lives in the US.

Customer Reviews

An excellent read - read it with an open mind!
I chose to buy this book as one of my 'summer reads' thinking it would be a light-hearted Bridget Jones-esq type story (as she is mentioned on the back of the cover) that would require just enough brain power to keep me amused and off the streets for a few hours during the hot summer months. However, I was delighted to discover that it was not at all like many of the millions of Bridget Jones look-alike books that have appeared on bookshop shelves in the last three years. I haven't finished reading it but so far I have found it original, funny, insightful and extremely cleverly written. I love the disjointed style and subtle descriptions of the characters.

I feel sad reading all the other reviews below as it seems that many people feel disappointed by this book.

I think it was pitched at the wrong market.

Great book, stop putting it down: you missed the point
...OK, I read and loved Bridget Jones but let's face it, we are not talking "Don Quijote" here. There is no need to rank the merits of all novels written after Bridget depending on how similar they are to it!! Has everybody gone crazy! There is life after Bridget, you know, and this could be it.

"The Girls Guide" is not light-hearted comedy. It includes a brave witty heroine and the never ending quest for true love but it is deeper, better written and more touching than Bridget (here I go falling into the same comparison trap). It is not about what to wear to an exciting date, it is about feeling, about love itself, how it comes and how it goes and how a perfect man does not equal to perfect love. If you read it well it will make you laugh and it will make you cry and it will make you want to read it again after a while. What else can you ask from a book?

What is this about?
I just can't understand how this book came to receive those reviews that made me buy it. It fails as a serious reflection on mid-30s womanhood, it is not funny, it is not a page-turner, it is well writen, but far from a literary jewel.

I thought the first chapter, the story of the discovery by the main character of the highs and lows of love and relationships through his older brother's summer affair, was pretty good. It would have made a neat short story that would have me thinking: here we have a promising new writer.

The rest of the book is disposable. It filled up a long night train ride through central Europe. It will be soon forgotten.

As to that absurd middle chapter on the neighbours: what was it about? I suspect it meant to make the book "serious" by introducing something unexplained: so not-best-seller, so pretentious... ridiculous. Another good short story though.

A writer with some potential. A vacuous and boring book.